‘La La Land’ hits a wrong note in Screen Actors Guild noms

FILE - This image released by Roadside Attractions and Amazon Studios shows Lucas Hedges, right, and Casey Affleck in a scene from “Manchester By The Sea.” La La Land” may have hit all the right notes for the Golden Globes, but the Screen Actors Guild sung a different tune Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016, when Kenneth Lonergan’s New England-set family drama “Manchester by the Sea” picked up the most nominations. It’s leading four nominations included best ensemble cast, best actor for Casey Affleck and best supporting performances for Michelle Williams and Lucas Hedges. (Claire Folger/Roadside Attractions and Amazon Studios via AP)

Actors Common, left, and Sophia Bush announce the nominations for the 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards at the Pacific Design Center on Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2016, in West Hollywood, Calif. The annual awards show honoring film and television performances will be held on Jan. 29, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

The rising chorus for “La La Land” is suddenly missing a very conspicuous note.

The 23rd annual Screen Actors Guild nominations, announced Wednesday in West Hollywood, California, included nominations for the leads of Damien Chazelle’s acclaimed musical, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. But the perceived Oscar front-runner was notably absent in the SAGs’ top category, best ensemble.

But if it goes on to win best picture, it will be the first to do so without a SAG ensemble nod in the category’s history. Actors, the largest group in the Academy of Motion Pictures, hold considerable sway. (SAG, though, is much larger, with about 160,000 members, compared to about 1,200 actors in the academy.)

“Have never been happier in my career about any nomination,” said Mortensen, also nominated for best actor. “That fellow actors in our Screen Actors Guild have just acknowledged that (director) Matt Ross has constructed a truly memorable family story for our times.”

“Manchester by the Sea” led all films with four nominations, including best actor for Casey Affleck and supporting nods for Michelle Williams and Lucas Hedges.

In television, series newcomers “The Crown,” “Westworld” and “Stranger Things” all picked up three nominations each, alongside Emmys favorite “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story” and “Game of Thrones.”

Netlfix dominated with 17 total nominations, followed by HBO’s 13.

Individual film SAG nominees have historically aligned about four-out-of-five with Oscar acting categories. The other lead actor nominees were Denzel Washington (“Fences) and Andrew Garfield (“Hacksaw Ridge”).

Left out were of trio of likely contenders. Annette Bening, an assumed lock for an Oscar nod, for her 1970s matriarch in Mike Mills’ “20th Century Women.” Isabelle Huppert, who has nearly swept critics’ awards, was passed over for her performance in Paul Verhoeven’s edgy “Elle.” And Ruth Negga, like her “Loving” co-star Joel Edgerton, failed to land a nomination.

On the supporting side for actors, “Moonlight’s” Marershala Ali continues to dominate the category with another nomination. (As a cast member in “Hidden Figures,” he had a share in three nominations Wednesday.) He’ll be competing against “Manchester’s” Hedges, Jeff Bridges for “Hell or High Water,” Dev Patel for “Lion” and Hugh Grant for “Florence Foster Jenkins.”

The 23rd annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be broadcast live on TNT and TBS on Jan. 29 from the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.